Chapter 1

Jacksonville, FLThursday afternoon

IT WAS EARLY Thursday afternoon, it had been a slow week, and I was bored. So bored, in fact, that I couldn’t muster much enthusiasm for my two o’clock appointment. Why? You may well ask. As a licensed private investigator, my job is to do whatever my clients pay me to do, within legal constraints, of course—and my next visitor was going to get me involved in a divorce case. Yeah, I know, divorce work is my bread and butter, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it. I managed to stifle a yawn when the noise of a buzzer told me that someone had opened the front door of my office. The buzzer was a poor substitute for a receptionist, but it saved me a ton of money. In lieu of a receptionist, I left the door leading from the outer office to my inner office open to keep a watchful ear on the waiting area.

“Come on in and have a seat,” I said, just loudly enough for my new client to hear me over the hum of traffic noises coming from the busy street outside.

The guy who walked through the door was in his late thirties, sported the scruffy goatee that was the dernier criin facial decoration amongst rednecks these days, and was dressed in coveralls displaying an elaborately embroidered logo that I couldn’t immediately identify. “Bill Hancock,” the man said, extending a hand.

“Quentin Quasar,” I said, as I shook it.

“Is that really your name?” he said. “I’ve never heard of anybody named Quasar before.”

“It’s not the surname I was born with, but I always hated my birth surname, which also began with ‘Q’, so I had it legally changed when I turned eighteen. If you look at the diplomas and certificates on the wall behind me, the surname ‘Quasar’ appears on all of them.”

“Yeah, I can see that from here.”

“So, Mr. Hancock, have a seat and tell me what can I do for you.? In your telephone call you mentioned the possibility of an unfaithful wife.”

He settled down in a side chair and said without preamble, “I know that bitch is sleeping with somebody else, and I want you to catch her at it, or at least find me enough proof to use in court.”

“I can do that,” I said. “What’s your wife’s name, and where do you live?”

“Her name is Sybil Hancock.”

“With an S or a C?”

“S-Y-B-I-L,” he said, spelling it out carefully.

“Got it. And the address?”

He gave me an address in Starke, the county seat of Bradford County, about forty-five miles to the south and somewhat to the west of where we sat. I groaned inwardly, because Starke is more or less tied with Lake City for the honor of being the most redneck town in northeast Florida.

I asked him a number of pertinent questions, and his answers made it sound as though his wife just might be up to something.

“I’ll need a picture of her.”

“Here you go.”

He handed me a small studio portrait of a good-looking brunette and said, “You don’t look like a detective.”

“Really? What does a detective look like?”

“Geez, I dunno. Different, I guess.”

“Mr. Hancock, successful private investigators can’t afford to look different.”

“What do you mean?”

“One of my best assets is the fact that I’m sort of average in appearance—average height, average build, average looks. That gives me an advantage when I’m following someone, because I don’t stand out in a crowd, so to speak. Trust me when I tell you that a good investigator needs to blend in with any group of people.”

“Yeah, I guess that makes sense. How much do you charge?”

“For divorce cases, I charge a daily rate plus expenses, and I require a retainer up front.”

“How much per day?”

I told him, and he said, “What kind of expenses?”

“My out-of-pocket expenses. For example, a mileage charge if I have to either go out of town or follow someone out of town, motel charges if I have to stay overnight, not to mention the costs of any bribes I might have to lay out.”

“What kind of bribes?”

“If I follow an adulterous couple to a motel, I can often gain the temporary use of a passkey by greasing the palm of whoever is behind the registration desk.”

“Okay, I get that. And the retainer?”

“The amount depends upon how many days you want me to devote to the case—generally speaking, three or four days paid in advance.”

“I can do that.”

He pulled out a wad of money, carefully counted out twelve one-hundred-dollar bills, placed them on the desk in front of me, and said, “I’d like a receipt.”

“Certainly.”

He glanced at his watch as I handed him the receipt. “I’ve gotta get to work,” he said. “I’m working the three-to-eleven shift out at the brewery.”

So the logo was Anheuser-Busch, then. Now that I knew that, I could read and understand the somewhat flowery initials ‘A. B.’ on his coveralls.